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“Re’eh” — “See”! The Torah portion this week opens with this command by the God of Israel to “see” — see the blessing and the curse that are set before them (Deuteronomy 11:26-27). Last week, the text commanded the Israelites to “Hear” — “Sh’ma“! This week continues last week’s long valedictory discourse, the going-away speech, the very last words of advice that Moshe/Moses wants to transmit as his flock is poised at the River Jordan, about to cross over into the Promised Land, knowing that he will neither guide nor accompany them any longer.

And what does he say in this one pithy little statement? “See what is before you” — both the category he calls blessing and the category he calls curse. Even if we ignored the rest of the verses in this parasha filled with laws that some Jews follow to this day, we could have a pretty significant conversation about what it means to see blessings and curses in one’s life.

First, an overview:

The storyteller sings a ditty that reviews the parts of this parasha highlighting blessings and curses, and telling us that there will be a helping hand to guide the Israelites in their sojourn in Canaan, despite temptations in their paths. What is not covered in the song are some of the laws that were picked up by the rabbis of the Talmud, and turned over and over to give us systems observed by some Jews several thousand years later — for example, some of the dietary laws of kashrut, telling us what is OK and what is forbidden to eat (Deuteronomy 14:3-21).

You may remember hearing this once before: in the Book of Leviticus, chapter 11 is the first time we encounter these strictures; and then here in Deuteronomy, we are getting all of the laws again, for the second time, sometimes changed a bit, through Moshe’s discourse. If you want to refresh your memory and enjoy another great little song, visit the blog post from that week back in April.

Also in our parasha this week are the laws of tithing (chapter 14:22-27) and laws concerning loaning money (chapter 15:1-11), among others, that all gave the Talmudic rabbis plenty of grist for their mills and provide the basis for Jewish observance today. We also read some laws describing sacrifices, slavery, and punishment by stoning, that were jettisoned after the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE.

Which makes this verse so interesting:

Everything which I charge you, that shall you keep to do. You shall not add to it and you shall not subtract from it (chapter 13: 1).

Wow!! Really? We are told right here in the Torah, explicitly by Moshe, not to change the laws at all by adding to, or subtracting from, them. But how can that be? We don’t observe the laws as stated — so in essence, it looks like we are subtracting; while in some cases (praying in a synagogue instead of slaughtering sacrifices on an altar), it looks like we have added to the laws.

A traditional interpretation of this one powerful verse holds that the entire Torah is called the “Written Torah” (the “Torah Sh’bihktav“), which must have been accompanied by another set of laws and interpretations thereof called the “Oral Torah” (the “Torah Sh’ba’al Peh“), the oral tradition that came to Moshe directly from God at Sinai, which provides the details needed in order to observe the laws even after the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were exiled from their beloved land. The famous statement in the Mishna (the foundational layer of the Talmud) in Pirkei Avot (Sayings of the Fathers) on the formation of the Oral Torah illustrates this point:

Moses received Torah from Sinai and handed it on to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets. And the prophets handed it on to the men of the great assembly…

Now, let’s wind our way back to the idea of blessings and curses that Moshe says will accompany the Children of Israel as they enter and dwell in their own land. He makes sure to tell them that they will be blessed as long as they obey God’s commandments, and cursed if they do not obey.

Last week I suggested looking at the word “land” metaphorically, to substitute the word “earth” for “land.” This week, I want to repeat the idea of reading metaphorically: I suggest that we read the phrase “obey the commandments of the Lord your God” as “perceive clearly and do the right things.” Then, the opening verses of the parasha might read as follows:

See your ability to choose clearly! This day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you perceive clearly and do the right things for yourself and others; and curse, if you do not do what is right, and turn away from the path that is available to each of us as human beings who are created in the image of the Holy One.

The name of this week’s parasha, Ekev, is kind of a hard word to translate precisely into English. Here are 3 renditions of the first phrase (Deuteronomy 7 verse 12):

“And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully…” (Jewish Publication Society)

“And it shall come about in consequence of your heeding these laws when you keep them and do them…” (Robert Alter)

“Now it shall be: because of your hearkening to these regulations, keeping and observing (them)….” (Everett Fox)

Ekev shares its root with the word for heel, ahkev. If we remember that Moshe/Moses is giving his culminating speech to the Children of Israel as they are poised on the border of the Promised Land, right before crossing over into the Land of Israel, he seems to be hammering home this point: “OK you guys, on the heels of all of the commandments God gave you is this crucial point: You must obey / heed / listen to these laws! And if you don’t do them, there will be major trouble, which I will now go on to describe.”

And as if a simple reminder wasn’t enough, Moshe takes the opportunity to recount things that surely the descendants of the Israelites who left Egypt must already know. Think about it: what stories were the parents and grandparents telling their offspring during all those long 40 years of wandering about in the desert? As far as we know, there were no Golden Books, no Goodnight Moon, and certainly no tablets with entertaining illustrated stories for the young set. It’s not hard to imagine that the older generation related the miracles of being brought into freedom from the bondage of Egypt, and the promise that they were going to live in a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where they would lack nothing (Deuteronomy 8: 7-10). It sounds like a fantasy or dream… certainly a rosy enough picture to pacify the kids when they complained about having to pull up stakes from one campsite to travel to another.

The G-dcast storyteller this week spends some time with the phrase in chapter 10 verse 16, about circumcising or cutting away the thickening around our hearts. The storyteller believes that when we cut away this thickening, we will become vulnerable and open; this is a good thing for our relationships with God and with others. You might want to look at this paragraph from the Curveball Health Coaching blog, on being vulnerable:

What I learned today reinforces with what I already believe — the more vulnerability you show — the better life you have. There are so many ways to be vulnerable, and Annelise highlighted some this morning: being in the moment, having self-compassion and asking for help. I’d love to hear from you: What are some ways you show vulnerability? Do you recognize these moments when you’re in them?

Part of Moshe’s valedictory speech was adopted by the rabbis of the Talmud when they began to construct the written siddur (prayerbook). The second paragraph of the Shema, recited twice daily, comes right from this parasha, chapter 11 verses 13-22. Here Moshe transmits to the people what God tells him about the consequences of not obeying the laws and commandments.

I suggest that we take a second look at the language, noticing that the commandments are inextricably tied to the way the earth will continue to produce its plenty. We are told that if we observe the commandments, “the rain will fall in its season, and there will be plenty of grain and wine and oil.” And if we don’t… well then, we will experience the dire consequences of no rain and no produce, and we will perish from “the good land” that God has given us. Moshe goes on and presses home the point: tell your children about all of this, keep talking about it, be vigilant about passing on these commandments lest they be forgotten.

Stepping back for a moment and looking at this passage using a wider lens, it seems to me (and many others before me) that we could read this passage metaphorically. Instead of reading it as if God will be angry or threatening and will demand only strict adherence to a set of biblical laws, we might read this passage as descriptive of what is actually happening with the degradation of the planet. That is, try to read the word “land” as “earth.” And read the words “loving the Lord your God and serving Him” as “loving the rules of nature that provide balance, seasons, and the capacity to nourish all” and read the words “for the Lord’s anger will flare up against you and He will shut up the skies so there will be no rain” as “the forces of nature will react, and we will encounter devastating droughts, famines, and climate [climactic refers to climax, not climate] catastrophes.”

Seen this way, the words resonate differently. That is, the consequences of what we do, and also what we ignore, may be damages of biblically disastrous magnitude. The earth itself will react to our not heeding the commandments of stewardship with all our hearts and with all our souls.

What do you think? Are we obeying the commandments and therefore enjoying the blessings of living on the good land/earth that the Lord has provided us, or are we headed down a path of curses? What are the consequences of the ways we have used technology (including pesticides, etc.) in the way we conduct our agricultural lives?

How do you reconcile difficult passages in Torah with your concepts of moral behavior?

What do you think about creating physical spaces to protect those who have committed some awful wrong (like manslaughter)? What should those spaces be like? What would a contemporary city of refuge look like?

Here we are already, at the last chapters of the book of Bemidbar/In the Wilderness/Numbers. Wow… that was a quick trip! It took the Israelites 40 years of wandering and took us just 10 Sabbaths of reading about their journey. Remember back in May when we started this desert trek?

Back then I mentioned that the opening chapters of Bemidbar contain several recurring themes, and that one of them is the theme of traveling and zig-zagging. We wander between texts that read like a triptych or map and texts that have a story or narrative to offer. In these final chapters we have a lot of GPS-like information (see Numbers 33:5-37 — and more!). All the place names! All of the camping sites! Sounds like an extended article in the New York Times Sunday Travel section.

Please note that this Shabbat we read a double portion: Mattot and Masei. The G-dcast for Mattot is done rap-style and worth your time to find out more about the difficulties in dividing up the Land of Canaan according to what each tribe desired.

When we get to chapter 34, we read about the boundaries of the map of the Land of Canaan which the Israelites are about to inherit.

Our storyteller this week focuses on how the Land is going to be divided up among the tribes; she paints a picture of a master plan for a utopian society based on the way land is to be used. She begins with the idea that every tribe will have its own specified section, except for the tribe of Levi — and they will receive their allotment as donations from the other tribes. This is to be in exchange for what the Levites will provide to the entire Israelite nation — leadership and role modeling — demonstrating good ethics, wisdom, teaching, and guidance.

While the idea of dividing up the land and giving the Levites their own cities is central to these last chapters of this 4th book of the Torah, there are a number of other important, even essential ideas that I want to highlight.

The idea of “cities of refuge.” You can read about them in chapter 35, verse 6 and verses 9-13. Basically there are designated places where those who have killed someone unintentionally (perhaps we would call this manslaughter) are offered a safe place, protected from those presumably seeking retribution, such as the kinsmen of the victim. The cities of refuge could be used by both Israelites and resident aliens who lived in the land. The Torah goes on to enumerate what circumstances would qualify to label a killing “unintentional,” or who merits the label “manslayer” instead of “murderer,” therefore deserving of protection in a city of refuge. Fascinating distinctions are being made here about the consequences of taking someone’s life. The rabbis of the Talmud were also fascinated by these distinctions, and constructed pages and pages of discussion on these verses. For example, chapter 35 verse 30: “If anyone kills a person, the manslayer may only be executed on the evidence of witnesses; the testimony of a single witness against a person shall not suffice for a sentence of death.”

From this, the rabbis riffed on how many witnesses (at least 2), who must be deposed separately (so as not to be influenced by the testimony of each other), and who must also be eye-witnesses to the event in question. Also, the rabbis concluded that the witnesses needed to have heard the killer being told (verbally) about the laws concerning murder, so that he would be fully aware of the consequences of his actions. There are literally dozens of exceptions in a capital case, so much so that by the time of the Talmud, laws about the cities of refuge are supplanted and made even more stringent, opposing simple and ancient judicially-imposed laws of retribution, such as: you kill someone, we will put you to death…. no extenuating circumstances count.

Expropriation of land belonging to others. This one is difficult for many of us to accept. When I read chapter 33 verses 50-56, I start to cringe. Why? Well, it seems that God is commanding the Israelites to utterly wipe out the indigenous people of the land that they are about to enter — the Land of Milk and Honey, the Land of Canaan, the Land of Israel, promised way back when to Abraham and Sarah. “You shall dispossess all the inhabitants…you shall destroy all their figured objects and molten images; you shall demolish all their cult places….”

For many, this exhortation sounds completely unethical and makes us wonder how the forward-thinking idea behind the cities of refuge (commanded by a God who tells us to always pursue justice) can stand side by side with a commandment to dispossess another people from the land on which they live. Does the success of one nation depend on the subjugation of another? What does it mean to favor one people with a “promised” land when others will need to be driven out of their homes, or worse? How are we to understand this?

This week’s Torah portion (parasha) contains one of only two narratives in the entire book of Leviticus — the rest of Leviticus is made up of laws, rules, and instructions. The story this week is of the death of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, and appears at the beginning of chapter 10 and is only 3 verses long. (But don’t worry — we also get rules, about food!, this week too. Read on…)

It is a poignant and tragic tale, partly due to its brevity, partly due to its strangeness. It leaves us with an overarching sense of injustice, and we are left with many questions but few answers. Why exactly did these men die? What does “alien fire” mean? Why would God want to kill young priests offering sacrificial incense?

You might imagine that these questions provide fertile ground for rabbinic inquiry, and you would be right. A number of midrashim (stories that come to fill in the blanks) were suggested by the rabbis of the Talmud about the deaths of Aaron’s sons. In chapter 9 of his book Reading The Book: Making The Bible A Timeless Text, Rabbi Burt Visotsky, a professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary, writes about sibling rivalry in the Bible. He explores the rivalry between Aaron and his more famous brother, Moses, and their sister, Miriam.

The literature is thoroughly divided on explaining how it came to pass that on the very day of Aaron’s investiture as High Priest, his two sons were put to death by fire from heaven. The puzzling death of the two siblings, Nadav and Avihu, is reported in the Bible on four separate occasions. Each time, the account differs until we are left with no clear idea of what actually happened…..

Professor Visotsky and his colleague, Dr. Avigdor Shinan of the Hebrew University, have laid out 12 separate reasons the traditional commentators gave for the deaths of Nadav and Avihu. Visotsky compares this gamut of explanations to the various points of view in the Japanese film Rashomon, in which the filmmaker, Kurosawa, wants the viewer to understand that a story has no objective truth and that it changes depending on who is telling the story. The same events can be interpreted in vastly different ways. What happened to Aaron’s sons is beyond comprehension — hence the 12 very different reasons from the rabbis who tried to make sense of a tragic and ultimately perplexing loss.

And what do we know of Aaron’s reaction? “And Aaron was silent.” This loss of two sons was beyond words — Aaron was speechless. The brother who was the mouthpiece, the one who was to speak to the Pharaoh for Moses, is left without words in the face of his heartbreaking loss. Sometimes in the face of overwhelming tragedy, the best behavior is silence.

Then, on a completely different wave length, (or as our G-dcast storyteller says, “now that this unpleasantness is behind us”) the parasha also lays out some of the rules of kashrut, enumerating explicitly which animals Jews are allowed to eat and which are forbidden. The storyteller presents this information from chapter 11 of Leviticus in a catchy song:

Eating is one of the most basic functions of a living, breathing creature, humans included. If we are lucky, we eat 3 meals a day, both to sustain us and to give us pleasure. The Torah is concerned with what we consume as food/fuel. In parashat Sh’mini, this weeks portion, we get the full rule book on what is in the YES column and what is in the NO column.

Notice that no explicit reason is given in the Torah for why some of these animals, birds, and fish are forbidden for Jews to eat. Kind of like the idea that there is no explicit reason that two of Aaron’s sons are consumed by the fire of the sacrificial alter, even though the G-dcast storyteller suggests a few, like one of the better known rabbinic “reasons” — that Nadav and Avihu were drunk, and therefore in no state to perform the holy acts of offering up the incense.

It occurs to me that we are only several days past the last crumbs of matzah from 8 days of Passover, when there were many restrictions on what kinds of food Jews were allowed to consume and what was forbidden — anything made from the five grains that could become hametz (leavened). On an outing to the local grocery store’s kosher section, you could see food products, many produced in Israel, that bore the label, “kosher for Passover;” these are foods that come out only at this time of year.

It’s worth a few moments of contemplation on what all of these restrictions mean to people observing the kashrut laws, both those derived from this week’s parasha and those that apply to the 8 days of Passover. Also worth noting are all of the various kinds of restrictions people freely adopt concerning the kind of food they will eat and what they deem forbidden for either health or environmental reasons… from veganism to abstaining from gluten or sugar, from raw foodists to those who will not eat any foods that have been processed commercially. Once you start thinking about the various categories of food that people will or will not eat, the laws of kashrut in chapter 11 are no longer so strange!

Which of your senses is the most important to you in understanding the world? Is this also the sense that helps you tap into your spiritual self?

Why does the writer of the Bible use the human body when describing God?

Why did the Israelites lose faith in Moshe’s returning to them? What makes you lose faith in someone or something?

Ki Tissa (Exodus 30:11 – 34:35) starts out slowly, with more instructions from God about a census and a special kind of tax for each Israelite, and then proceeds to add more instructions about the construction of the washing basin, or laver, that the priests will use when they offer sacrifices. Then, in chapter 30, verse 22, we get a recipe for a fabulous scented oil, which is to be used only by the priests. It sounds absolutely out of this world, like it was concocted by some Parisian perfumery. A few verses later, we get another recipe, this time for incense. One might get the idea that the sense of smell was very important to this desert tribe.

Chapter 31 changes direction and we read about one outstanding artisan, Bezalel, the son of Uri, the grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. Apparently, Bezalel was able to bring a divine spirit into everything he designed. He was a master craftsperson and worked in many media including gold, silver, cooper, precious stones, and wood. And God lets Moshe/Moses know that God wants Bezalel in charge of designing the Tent of Meeting and all of its furnishings. No wonder that the early Zionists named the Jerusalem-based college of arts “Bezalel,” after this master. It seems pretty obvious that it was important for God to have things look a certain way. Now maybe we are getting the idea that the sense of sight was important to the Israelites.

Now, a detour for a special paragraph, chapter 31 verses 12-17: the verses describing what is to happen on the 7th day, the Sabbath day. These verses are recited every Shabbat at Kiddush, the blessing over wine at the noontime meal; these verses express deeply held beliefs about what is and what is not to be done on the 7th day. The Sabbath is described as a “sign”, an “ot,” the very same word used for the first rainbow and for the circumcision of male babies on their 8th day of life. It is a sign of an agreement between the Israelites and God, for all times. More recently, around 100 years ago, the Zionist thinker, Asher Ginsberg, better known by his pen name of Ahad Ha’am (“one of the people”), riffed on this verse when he said, “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jewish people.” There is something rather profound about making the 7th day radically different from the other six. In fact, the newish organization Reboot has instituted one day a year as the day to unplug in their Sabbath Manifesto. Read it to see what people are saying! By the way, this year’s day to unplug is March 19-20 — will you be giving it a try?

Finally, we get to some big time drama in chapter 32. And I mean big! Chapter 32 is the story of the Golden Calf and its aftermath. Lots of fireworks, literal and metaphoric.

Our G-dcast storyteller focuses on the sense of sight in this week’s parasha, and how important it is to be able to see something with our own eyes. We already know that hearing is important to the tribes of Israel—after all, they are told “Sh’ma Yisrael” — Listen Israel, Adonai our God, Adonai is One. Listen, Hear, Pay Attention, Take-in-the-Oneness oneness of God.

But now, we concentrate on the sense of vision, of seeing, of being in-sight-ful. Why did the people freak out so much in Moshe’s absence that they needed to build an idol, a golden calf? Did they have so little faith that their leader, Moshe, would return? Did they have so little faith in the God who brought them out of Egypt? Well, apparently they had lost their faith, perhaps following the adage: out of sight, out of mind. They demanded that Aaron, Moshe’s brother, build them a molten calf of gold.

The calf is forged in the flames, the people sacrifice to it, feast, and party like there was no tomorrow (see chapter 32 verse 6).

But, there was a tomorrow, and I bet you can already predict what God is going to say and do. God sees the festivities and goes berserk. God wants to wipe them out, just the way God wiped out all of creation way back in the days of Noah back in Genesis. But Moshe is on the side of this rag-tag bunch of freed slaves and argues with God, just the way Avraham/Abraham argued with God to spare the people of Sodom and G’morrah, again back in Genesis. Good thing we have these loyal and stalwart leaders on the side of the Jewish people — we seem to need someone strong who can argue with God, even when we mess up. And God relents: “And the Lord renounced the punishment He had planned to bring upon His people” (chapter 32 verse 14).

So Moshe heads down the mountain with the tablets of the law that were inscribed with the writing of God, and stops in his tracks when he see the calf and the dancing. Major meltdown. Now it is Moshe who sees red, and is so angry that he throws the tablets to the ground, shattering them to smithereens. Oy! There will be a resolution — it is worth reading all the way to the end of chapter 32 to see how this drama ends.

One last narrative in our parasha that is filled with both joy and angst comes in chapter 33. It centers on an intimate and poignant conversation between Moshe and God. In verses 7-11, we read how it is when Moshe goes to speak/commune with God. What do the people do when they see Moshe enter the Tent of Meeting? How do they know Moshe is going to communicate with God? Verse 11 tells us: “The Lord would speak to Moshe face to face, as one man speaks with another.”

In verses 12-23 we are privileged to eavesdrop on one of the most fraught conversations between Moshe and God; we can actually hear the pleading voice of this tireless servant of God, this protector of Israel, who begs God to let Godself be seen intimately. And God demurs, lets Moshe know that even he, the greatest prophet of the Jewish people, may not actually see God’s face and live; but God will enable Moshe to feel the Divine Presence in a way no other man can. Verses 22-23: “…as My Divine Presence passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and shield you with My hand, until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.”

Lots of questions of course, beginning with: I thought that God had no body and no form… what does God mean when God mentions God’s own face, hand, and back? For one commentary on this conversation, see what Chancellor Arnie Eisen of JTS has to say.

Last week, we read in some detail about the building of the Ohel Mo’ed, the Tent of Meeting, aka the Miskhan, aka the Dwelling Place of the Divine. In this week’s parasha, called Tetzaveh, we read the elaborate descriptions of the clothing that the priests must wear when they serve God.

Our storyteller from G-dcast comments that the Torah is often sketchy about details we would like to know more about. But here, in describing the clothes of the priests, “the Torah goes into OCD mode” — there are so many precise and detailed descriptions, one might think that God was instructing Ralph Lauren on his new fall fashion line.

The yarns to be used are blue, crimson and purple; the design specifies embroidered pomegranates, and they are to be placed all the way around the bottom hem. And then, in between each pomegranate, there is to be a golden bell attached, a real bell, which will produce sound as the priest moves. Sounds exquisite, on par with the clothes the women of Downton Abbey wear when they visit their cousins’ castle in Scotland! In our own times, the highest ranking priests of the Catholic Church wear sacral vestments that are in the tradition of these ornate, highly decorative and expensive garments.

This leads us to ask some questions about both the Torah’s descriptions and why so many religious traditions dictate the exact kind of clothing to be worn when one is serving God. Why is it so important to know about the sash, the turban, the robed tunic, the exact colors, and what fabrics need to be part of the clothing? And further, why should God care so much about what the Priests wear when they perform the ritual sacrifices on behalf of the people? When a Catholic worshipper of today goes to church and witnesses the Mass performed by richly garbed cardinals (or even the Pope), how does the clothing worn by the priests impact the experience of the worshipper?

Anglican Archbishop and the Catholic Pope know what to wear!

As we approach the next book of the Torah, the book of Leviticus, we will see that many prescribed rituals fall into the “OCD” mode, as the video’s storyteller says. Look at the instructions for the sacrifices in Exodus 29 verses 19-21. This is what the priests, in their finery, must do: they must “…slaughter the ram and take some of its blood and put it on the ridge of Aaron’s right ear and on the ridges of his sons’ right ears and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet; and dash the rest of the blood against every side of the alter round about.” Wow! Talk about precise instructions that are pretty inscrutable. Here we have it in abundance.

Even though Jews no longer offer animal sacrifices, we still have laws that are considered puzzling and have no obvious purpose. Those laws are known as “hukkim” as opposed to laws which make some common sense, which are known as “mishpatim.” A mishpat (single form of mishpatim) is something like “don’t steal” or “don’t kill.” The sorts of laws in the category of hukkim are like the laws of kashrut, dietary restrictions for keeping kosher. We just do them (if we want to be observant) because they were commanded, not because they necessarily make sense or make society work any better.

Before we leave the parasha of Tetzaveh, with its opening focus on the clothing of the priests, I also want to acknowledge the lovely coincidence that the Torah reading points to the holiday that comes on its heels — the joyous holiday of Purim, which falls on the 14th of Adar, which is the evening of February 23 through the 24th this year. Parashat Tetzaveh and Purim both have clothing and costumes interwoven in them. One of the fun aspects of the Purim festivities is dressing up in costumes and disguises. This is our topsy-turvy festival where nothing is what it seems. In Hebrew, the word for clothing is beg’ed, the root, b.g.d. This root also forms the word bag’ad, to betray or lie. Think of it this way: when we wear clothes, we cover-up our bodies and a “cover-up” is also used to describe hiding something, not being transparent, maybe even betraying someone’s trust. On the holiday of Purim, we masquerade; we put on costumes to appear to be someone other than ourselves. What is it about covering up or hiding oneself that is so central to this festival? And what is it that the clothing of the priests is covering up, if anything?